Frances O'Grady

Activist

1959-11-09

Quotes by Frances O'Grady

• The TUC's new slogan 'a future that works' sets a profound challenge. Austerity and rapid deficit reduction is failing in its own terms, but even at its best it is short-sighted, muddle-through politics with no vision of a new economic model.

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• Governments of all stripes want to deliver growth and rebalance their economies now that they have learned the hard way that, left to their own devices, markets pick expensive banking losers.

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• Ordinary people who have lots of good ideas want more than a suggestion box, and they need a union to represent that thinking.

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• Britain is a textbook case of how growing inequality leads to economic crisis. The years before the crash were marked by a sharp rise in remortgaging and the growth of 0 percent balance transfer credit cards. By 2008 the UK had the highest ratio of household debt to GDP of any major economy.

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• Although there's a lot of focus on the Lib Dems, we need to keep our eyes on the far right of the Tories, who I suspect will become increasingly impatient in their appetite for tax cuts, deregulation and shrinking the state even further.

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• All the evidence shows very clearly that if you are a member of a trade union you are likely to get better pay, more equal pay, better health and safety, more chance to get training, more chance to have conditions of work that help if you have caring responsibilities... the list goes on!

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• I came from a family where joining a union was the expected thing to do. I've always believed that the relationship between an employer and an individual worker is fundamentally unequal.

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• Never has a strong, responsible trade union movement been so needed. With austerity policies biting hard and with no evidence that they are working, people at work need the TUC to speak up for them now more than ever.

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• Voting to go on strike is not a decision working people take lightly and is always accompanied by a strong sense of injustice at work. The impact of losing a day's pay is significant, not least for those in the lowest paid jobs who are already on the tightest budgets.

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